Before email, texts, mobile phones or even old fashioned telephone service, there was the telegram. It’s days have finally come to an end. India’s state run telegram service sent its last message on Sunday evening and the last remaining 75 telegraph offices will now close.
Once upon a time there were over 45,000 telegraph offices in India, which handled over 600,000 messages on a daily basis. The office in the heart of old Delhi by itself used to handle more than 10,000 telegrams a day, by the end of the service’s existence, it was sending 100 on a good day.
It was just losing too much money to maintain, several hundred million dollars over the past several years. Telegrams lasted a long time in India. It was a good way to send news of things like a baby’s birth, marriage announcements and more. However, by the end of the service’s life, they were used primarily for official correspondence, which can easily be done through email, or even a fax. Telegrams had a good run in India, but like other old tech, it’s time has now passed.
Source Phone Arena